Well I haven't written in this for sometime...truth is I have been so discouraged with the anti-poverty movement as of late, I feel like we have been co-opted by professionals. It is a dangerous thing to be poor and an activist...it keeps you under employed, it keeps you poor, it gets you either tokenized or in trouble. Am I bitter, a little.
I had great hope in the NDP government. Finally a government that thinks and believes in equity and justice for people living in poverty like I do, or so I thought. Wow was I wrong. Maybe the reason I feel betrayed is because I expected more. I expected that they would keep all their promises..you the ones they made when they were not yet government. I expected they would make things better for the poor, instead on this anniversary of the declaration of the international day for the eradication of poverty we are worst off then ever before, why, because our hope that we could have an elected government that sides with low-income people was just an illusion. This government sides with big business, and with the owners of this country, and we the low income populus...are not important to them at all, unless it is election times then they are smiles and promises.
I went to a rally and a panel discussion today and the stories I heard are the same ones I have been hearing for the last 20 years...exactly the same. One story today broke my heart, a single Mom of 3 children, living on income assistance and working part-time. She talked about not being able to afford her children's asthma medication and needing to make choices of paying rent, power, food and meds. She told us her story of not being able to get her children into sports or other recreational activity. Her voice trembled as she acknowledge her children were at a disadvantage and would be more likely to be poor because she was poor. How can this still happen, after all our activism, all our advocacy...how can all that work mean nothing, after all this time why haven't we moved forward.
What will it take to make a change? I for sure no longer believe government is the answer. We need to bypass them completely...create our own poverty elimination strategy. Maybe make them obsolete...ah my red is showing again...and I am not talking liberal..
As for me, I will keep moving forward...because there is no going back
